“There is no appreciation that can save you now,” the Black Reach snarled. “Even if the only futures sold were your own and a Nameless End’s, you still crossed the line, and for that you must die.”
“Why?” Bob demanded. “Your purpose is to stop seers before they sell our futures. That’s why you had to kill Estella even though her initial deal wasn’t on our plane, because we both knew she’d never stop until I was dead. I’m a different case entirely. I can’t sell a future ever again. I gave that power away to save my brother’s life, so what would killing me accomplish?” He shrugged. “Nothing. I’m now the safest seer you could ever ask for, because I am now physically incapable of breaking your rules. If anything, you should be thanking me for this. Not only did I save your favorite dragon’s life, but with me no longer able to meddle in the future and Chelsie’s daughter not due to have her first vision until she hits puberty, I’ve bought you a decade of vacation. When was the last time you got that?”
He finished with a toothy grin, but the Black Reach looked unamused. “It doesn’t matter if the ends were good, the means you employed go directly against my purpose. I cannot let that go without punishment.”
“Without punishment?” Bob cried. “I gave up my powers! Do you know how good a seer I was? I beat Estella, who was two thousand years older than I was, at her own game! I orchestrated the plot that saved the world! I beat you! No one is ever going to top that, and I just gave it away!”
Chelsie rolled her eyes. “So much for modesty.”
“It’s the truth,” Bob snapped. “I’m amazing, and you know it. By losing my powers now, I’m quitting at my peak. That’s punishment enough for the entire world.”
“Enough,” the Black Reach growled, blowing out a cloud of smoke. “I don’t have time for your antics. I used up more of my fire today than I have in the last ten thousand years combined. I should use more to punish you, but while you absolutely deserve to die, I have decided to postpone your execution.”
It might have been Marci’s imagination, but she would have sworn Bob shuddered in relief. “Good choice,” he said when he’d recovered, though not nearly as casually as he’d probably meant. “Saw things my way, did you?”
“No,” the Black Reach said, and then the enormous dragon faded away, leaving only the tall Chinese man wearing the same black silk robe he’d worn every time Marci had seen him.
“The decision is strictly practical,” the now human—and very tired-looking—construct continued. “Right now, your magic is the only thing keeping Julius Heartstriker’s fire burning. If I kill you, he will die as well, and I didn’t just spend half my fire protecting his futures to lose them now. Even if I wait until he’s stable to kill you, though, doing so will burn through too much of my remaining power, and I simply don’t have the fire to spare. Already, my flames are critically low. I need to rest and regroup what little remains if I am to survive. That demands several quiet decades, and I’m sure those will be much easier to obtain if I’m only dealing with one new seer instead of two.” He reached out to tap Bob on the snout. “Right now, the male incarnation of the dragon seers is still locked up in you, even if you can’t use it. If I kill you, that power will be reborn into a new fire, which means I’ll have to scramble all over again, and I just don’t have that sort of energy.”
“Now you really do sound like an old man,” Bob said with a chuckle. “A venerable and wise one, who sees the world clearly through his lens of vast experience.”
The construct rolled his eyes at the fawning recovery and stepped closer still, looking up at Bob’s dripping dragon with the stoic finality of a judge pronouncing a verdict. “Brohomir of the Heartstrikers, consider yourself lucky. You are still sentenced to death, but for practical reasons, including the fact that you are currently not a risk to the futures of dragonkind, your execution is commuted until I recover. Or until you annoy me too much.”
Bob’s face split into a triumphant grin. “Nonsense. You’d get bored without me.”
The Black Reach’s eyes narrowed, and Bob quickly backed down. “Thank you for your mercy, great construct,” he said meekly. “I should probably take Julius to Amelia now.”
“That would be best,” the Black Reach agreed, glancing at the dragons watching from the shore. “Any more coincidences I should know about before I go?”
“No,” Bob said, looking worriedly at the tiny flame in his claws. “But if you could spare a teensy, tiny bit more of that fantastic fire, I think we might need it. Julius was always small, but this is a terrifyingly dim fire, even for a runt.”
The Black Reach’s scowl softened at that.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
Chapter 16
Death was a gentler experience than Julius expected.
Growing up with daily threats, he’d always expected his end would be quick, brutal, and messy. But while being ripped apart from the inside had been all that and more, the actual dying part hadn’t been so bad. Peaceful, almost, which was why Julius was very confused when he woke up to find himself lying in a hospital bed.
He jolted, his whole body going stiff just in time for him to realize it was his human body, which only made everything even weirder. He was positive he’d died as a dragon. Inside a Nameless End, no less. If he was going to wake up anywhere, it should be inside his own death, as Marci had described. He knew he wouldn’t be lucky enough to get their house, as she had, but he’d certainly expected better than a human hospital, complete with mint-green walls and scratchy sheets.
At least it smelled nice. The whole room smelled of Marci’s magic. Tons of it, actually, as though he were inside one of her casting circles. Not that he minded, of course, but it was still odd. Why was there so much magic? And why was his chest so heavy? Like there was a weight lying right in the middle of his—
Julius froze, eyes growing wide. Marci was sleeping on his chest. The real Marci, unless ghosts came with dark circles under their eyes and hospital scrubs. That did explain the overwhelming scent of magic, though. Everything around him—the sheets, the bed rails, the hospital’s monitoring equipment, the walls, the door, the window—was covered in spellwork written in Marci’s precise hand. From the overlapping marker stains on her fingers, she must have been at it for days, but Julius had no idea what it was all for. He was arguing with himself about whether he should wake her and ask or let her sleep since she looked so tired when he realized the two of them were not alone.
On the far side of the room, sprawled across a plastic hospital chair like he’d been dropped there from orbit, was Bob. He looked absolutely terrible. His face was gaunt, as though he’d been starving for weeks, and his skin looked like it hadn’t seen the sun in months. But while his dark circles were even larger than Marci’s, the seer’s eyes were open, the bright-green glowing in the soft light from the window as he smiled at Julius.